NBC News pundit Chuck Todd tweeted: “Good grief, this is an AWFUL start to the debate. Great TV, I guess… but come on, another attack on someone’s looks?”

Sorry to say, it was great TV. If you hoped for personal attacks between Republican candidates, live infighting, 10 men in suits plus one woman posturing for the camera, the second GOP debate on CNN was oddly entertaining. There were enough Trumpisms to satisfy non-political junkies. (Jeb Bush versus Donald Trump, reason to pay this month’s cable bill. Trump versus Rand Paul, better than pro wrestling.) If the whole thing had lasted only 20 minutes it would have been even better.

Speaking of the camera, Chris Christie pulled a fast one at the very start, asking CNN to turn the camera on the audience rather than on himself. And the director obliged! That’s TV as entertainment, not a political contest, not a serious discussion of issues or policies.

Great TV, but too long.

“If I were at home watching this, I’d be inclined to turn it off,” John Kasich said of the debate. And that was in the first of three hours.

Who won? That depends. Carly Fiorina proved she can be as tough and well spoken as any of the guys and had the perfect deflection for Trump’s comments on her looks (“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”)

Bush proved he can smile while Trump bashes him. Ben Carson showed he can pull off wide pin-stripes. Kasich and Scott Walker reminded people they’re running.

Clint Eastwood’s speech to the GOP convention Thursday night has been characterized in some quarters as funny/crazy. In fact, it was a serious miscalculation, a bad choice of speaker who ended up being shockingly disrespectful to the office of the president. The takeaway: how is the RNC capable of leading the country if it can’t keep an aging movie star on a leash?

The expression on Ann Romney’s face –that “You’re Ruining My Wedding!” look– conveyed how Eastwood’s performance went over with the Party higher-ups and convention organizers. Ever after, Eastwood’s “go f— yourself” speech will be remembered more vividly than anything the actual candidate uttered.

A stage hand, left, adjusts the teleprompter for Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., during a walkthrough ahead of his delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention, Wednesday, Aug. 29, in Tampa, Fla.

The media’s fact-checking function has been standard for generations but it’s just now become mandatory in as close to real time as possible. Journalists must fact-check politicians and report any exaggerations, errors by omission or plain falsehoods, pronto.

This week, as the GOP convenes in Tampa, the fact-checking role has taken on new urgency. The new mantra, as articulated by Jay Rosen, New York University journalism professor, is “fact check it as you report it, not later.”

Among the best of the lot, not least because of the surprising source, was the foxnews.com takedown of Paul Ryan’s Wednesday night performance. The posting by Sally Kohn distilled the speech into three words: “Dazzling, Deceiving, Distracting.”

Channel 4’s Shaun Boyd was offered a presidential candidate interview via satellite Thursday, however the offer came with a restriction: in offering the interview to the reporter in an important swing state, Mitt Romney’s campaign forbade her to ask about abortion or Todd Akin — the twin topics currently dogging the GOP in advance of the political convention.

Boyd resisted, saying they were newsworthy topics, then agreed to the stipulations. The station aired the interview, careful to note which topics were off limits. The footage was immediately circulated to political reporters by the Obama campaign.

“We have been entirely open in our reporting about stipulation made by Romney campaign in offering an interview to Shaun Boyd,” tweeted Tim Wieland, Channel 4 news director.

“The fact that he doesn’t want to talk about this says something in and of itself,” Boyd told Talking Points Memo. “In some ways this speaks for itself even without asking the question.” The Romney camp handed her a scoop by trying to prevent any kind of scoop.

Do you believe what you read in the paper? How about what you see on TV news? If you are a GOP partisan, the answer is probably not.

The Pew Research Center says, for the second time in a decade, “the believability ratings for major news organizations have suffered broad-based declines.” A survey found the falloff in credibility extended to national newspapers (the New York Times and USA Today), three cable news outlets (Fox, CNN, MSNBC), as well as the broadcast TV networks and NPR. Local newspapers and TV stations fared somewhat better.

According to the study, “since 2002, every news outlet’s believability rating has suffered a double-digit drop, except for local daily newspapers and local TV news.”

The Pew folks note the partisan differences in responses to their survey, apparent for years, are growing larger. Republicans’ views of the credibility of the media have continued to erode. By contrast, the study says, Democrats generally rate the believability of news organizations positively.

During the Republican debate in New Hampshire on Sunday, Newt Gingrich landed the best line of the political season: “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?”
[media-credit name=”ABC” align=”alignright” width=”270″][/media-credit]

Gingrich was referring to Mitt Romney’s claim that he is not a professional, lifetime politician. But the comment could apply more broadly to the blah-blah-blah of the entire panel.

The frontrunner, red-eyed Romney, was the target of much of the sniping from his GOP rivals in the debate held two days before the N.H. primary, which kicks off the 20212 primaries. The overall tone was more hostile than in previous debates this year, with Rick Perry and Rick Santorum accusing the others of not being conservative enough.

George Stephanopoulos of ABC News was particularly strong in pushing questions and not backing down in the face of all sorts of baloney, pious and otherwise.

At the beginning of the GOP Iowa caucus night, the TV pundits obsessed about the poor showing of the bottom three candidates. The punditry was rather dull, although anything was better than “Work It,” the worst comedy of the year, premiering on ABC opposite the political coverage.

“Are the second tier Republicans collapsing?” asked Stu Rothenberg on PBS. That, he said, was the question of the night.

The top tier is Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, Fox News’ Brett Baier announced early in the evening.

As the GOP field became clear, the TV metaphors switched into horse-race terminology. “A tight race.” “Neck and neck.” “Three-way race.”

“Too close to call,” said Rachel Maddow. “Wow, what a night!”

If only the viewers could get as excited as Maddow and Chuck Todd. NBC may not call the race tonight before every vote is counted, he said. Imagine that! Not knowing the results before the results are known!

They’ll do it the old-fashioned way, Todd said.

Comments Off on Iowa caucus: where a “three-way” is still boring. Too close to call.

The ABC News/Yahoo Republican presidential primary debate on Saturday night drew nearly 7.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen, making it the most-watched debate yet of this election cycle. It also happened to be the first since Newt Gingrich attained Republican frontrunner status.

The best TV moment from Saturday’s event was Mitt Romney’s offer to bet Rick Perry $10,000. The best twitter remark about that bet came from author/humorist Andy Borowitz, who wrote “In Campaign Gaffe, Romney Bets Unemployed Iowa Man Case of Vintage Bordeaux.”

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.